Never Say Goodbye
by fakegodsanddemigods
Summary: The Doctor left Rose Tyler standing on Bad Wolf Bay with the Meta-Crisis. He thought and hoped that the two would have the life Rose wanted, the life that he couldn't give to her. However, things don't work out quite as planned.


_You didn't even say goodbye…_

Rose could feel his lips pressed against hers, an exact replica of the lips she had grown to love. The same lips she had sneaked kisses from throughout the corridors of the TARDIS for so long and those very same ones she had been so sure she would never have again. But they weren't his. They weren't the Doctor's never could be.

And as right as they felt in that moment of emotions, there was no denying that the man who had whispered his love into her ear was not her Doctor. He was nothing more than a genetic formation resembling the man that she loved with everything that was in her. Just genetics.

At the sound of the TARDIS, Rose broke away, the realization falling over her that the blue box was fading in front of her and she tried to make sense of it. There was her life, her love, fading away on the beach and she couldn't stop it. She couldn't bring him back. And she knew, in that second, that she would never see him again.

And he hadn't even said good bye.

It took several seconds for her to register the feeling of the other man's hand sliding into hers. A few seconds more before she felt her own fingers tangling with his and clinging to the feeling of an odd sort of unfamiliar familiarity. Even longer before she noticed the tears sliding down her cheeks to tangle with the blonde hair that whipped around in the ocean's breeze. And all of a sudden she found herself wrapping his arm around her own waist and dropping his hand so that she could bury her tear stained face against his chest.

He may not have been the Doctor but his arms felt like him and he held her even more tightly. And that was everything she needed while her feet couldn't bring them to move from their spot in the sand. No. He wasn't the Doctor, but for just one day she could pretend. For one evening she could just let herself believe that she was back with the Doctor or maybe the TARDIS wasn't working and they had to make due. Just for a little while.

Just long enough for her to gather the strength to lead him home…Home. Because that's what it had to become.

Her home wan't much. Then again, she had never expected it to be permanent. A two bedroom house just outside of Cardiff. All but the second room furnished. Rose could get to that…appeared she would have to under the given circumstances. But for tonight, she needed him. Needed him there, with her.

Rose invited the man who wasn't quite the Doctor into her bed for the evening. Begged him to hold her close, to kiss her, to take care of her. And he had obliged, his arms silently wrapping around her and holding him as close as he possibly could and Rose sobbed as his single heart beat against her ear. Four beats had slipped into two and there was no pretending. No hoping. This man wasn't the Doctor…

Never would be.

He would always be just the John Smith that the Doctor had always pretended to be. Nothing more. Nothing less. Human with the memories of a brilliant man.

For a month, he agreed to sleep in the newly furnished second bedroom just across the hall from her. For one month he had no complaints and took silent joy in holding her hand in the moments she let her guard down and took hers first. He had dinner ready every the Bay when she came home from her work at Torchwood. And every evening he'd sit there with a small smile and listen as she told him about her day.

But one evening, after a month of nothing more than a hand to hold and stolen, shy, innocent lips brushing across cheeks, she found him sitting on the couch with a book in hand and in that moment she realized just who he was. He was hers. John Smith, the man who shouldn't be, the man who should have been completely impossible…and he was hers. And he had been so patient, so kind. Because he knew. He knew she would understand.

Rose pulled him to his feet and pressed her lips against his in the first kiss they'd shared since standing on Bad Wolf Bay. Her tears quickly found her as she whispered tearful apologies against his lips and his hands found themselves tangled in her hair as he shook his head, doing everything he could to tell her there was no need to apologize. He understood. He understood all of it.

From that night on, he never spent a night away from her bed. Even when work ran late and he was waiting until wee hours of the morning, he waited. For his Rose, he could wait for eternity.

Rose grew to love him. Not that it took much. Her mind began to realize that she'd been abandoned and it became so simple to turn all of the pain and hurt into anger. Anger with the Doctor, the man who had forced her into a life without him. But her heart filled with hope for John Smith, the man who accepted humanity and a life with her.

It wasn't more than another five months later when he took her back to Bad Wolf Bay. They walked the edge of the water, hand in hand. Words didn't need to be said. It had become a place of hope, a place of thanks. A place that brought them together despite the worst of circumstances.

Her eyes filled with tears when he pulled a small box out of a pocket inside of his jacket. The ring inside was small but beautiful. Nothing more than a single diamond set in a white gold band. But the hands holding it shook with nerves and emotions and the smile that lit his eyes told her everything she needed to know about that moment. His words spoke of forever and of a life that they could have. He told her he wanted to spend the rest of his years with her, start a family, and make their place in this world.

Rose couldn't find words as she nodded and pulled him to her for a tearful kiss as his fingers fumbled to slip the ring on her finger. She was his. Always would be and there wasn't a thing in the world that could change it. Nothing.

Eight months spent planning a wedding and holding as tightly as possible to their own happiness and to the world they'd be creating. Almost eight months to the day when she found him laying the floor of their kitchen with a bloody nose an a rough bump on his head. He said he'd forgotten to eat as she pulled him into her lap, the phone tucked against her ear as she waited for the other line to connect. Rose knew better. John never forgot to eat. Not a meal or a snack. Never.

The medical team wrote it off as nothing more than a dizzy spell. Nothing too uncommon for humans and just another thing that the Meta-Crisis would have to get used to in his new body. Nothing more than that.

And they had believed it. The two continued on with their life. Date nights on Fridays or Saturdays as Rose's schedule permitted. Dinner on Wednesdays when her days ended early and he'd have something wonderful ready and on the table the moment she walked in the door.

They continued their planning. A wedding set for the spring of the next year, a little less than a year away. The two decided on floral arrangements and a guest list. They bickered over catering options and what colour tuxedo he'd be wearing for the occasion. And Rose had even picked out her own dress. A dress she'd dreamed of since she was a little girl. Something perfect to be married to the man she'd loved across time.

Another four months went by without issue. Only four. It had seemed to pass in the blink of an eye and Rose had believed everything would be alright. For four months the two of them were so certain of a life together. A life that would be theres until they were too old to leave their beds.

But then he'd began coughing and splatters of blood littered the skin of his hand. Rose knew something was wrong. They both did.

Another trip to Torchwood and they were informed that he didn't have long. The process by which he had been created had proved to create an unstable clone. One that shouldn't exist, one that couldn't exist. And there was nothing they could do to make him possible.

Treatment…That was all. Just a way to prolong the inevitable. Give him another six months at the very most. Slow the dysfunction of his organs and make whatever pain he felt a little more bearable. But that was all anyone had to offer.

Of course that would be how it ended. Rose would be left alone. The Doctor had left her with an impossible man who couldn't exist. He hadn't bothered to check, hadn't cared enough to see just how stable the clone really was. She'd had no warning that she would lose him. The Doctor had never warned her.

They made the most of the six months they had. They did their best to push back the reminders that he would soon be gone. The traveled, went places they swore they would always go once they were married. And even though they weren't going to make it to their own wedding, oh they traveled so very far. From Italy to Canada to Greece and to Japan. They went as many places as they could for as long as his health would allow.

Torchwood allowed her time off, to spend six months with the man she loved. The man she would lose. Six months of just the two of them. Breakfast in bed and dinner in blanket forts. They lived their life with as much love and as much fun as they could let themselves.

In the end, he started to have trouble pulling himself out of bed. His joints were giving out and everything started hurting. Eventually he just couldn't do it anymore. He stayed in bed all day and Rose sat right beside of him, reading to him or talking to him about all of the places they'd seen. She held his hand and carded her fingers through his hair while he looked up at her with a smile as bright as the first day. He never wavered. He was strong for her, he had to be. Because he could see the pain and the fear in her eyes. And he needed something to push back the guilt of leaving her behind…of not being able to have the life with her the Doctor never could.

Twenty four months almost to the day that they arrived in the world, John's breathing wavered and Rose knew it was time. She lay with him and curled against his side as he watched her with apologetic eyes. He pressed a shaking kiss against her lips and whispered his apologies and she kissed him with everything that was in her as she tried to show him that he had nothing to apologize for. She understood.

She let her hand find his as his eyes closed almost as if he were sleeping. He knew. He wanted her to see him at peace. And with a last breath Rose watched him fade away. She watched as the man she loved became nothing but a memory.

It was cold the day they buried him. She sat in the chair, her hands pressed tight into her lap and her eyes never leaving his casket. She stayed when they lowered him into the Earth, couldn't bring herself to leave as the tears fell across her cheeks and onto the fabric of her dress.

She watched as her world was buried beneath six feet of dirt and she knew that nothing would ever be the same.

Rose Tyler was left alone in a world she didn't want.

And she couldn't even bring herself to say goodbye.


End file.
